People are afraid, they prefer to look down and carry on with their lives as best they can. There is no way that unarmed people can fight with people who have tanks, bombs and weapons up to their teeth. The biggest protest that took place in Venezuela was in 2002 (if I'm not mistaken) and it ended in a total massacre. Since then there have been several other protests, but not the same number of people and each time there are more people killed and more people kidnapped.